Bates Motel is an American drama-thriller television series developed by Carlton Cuse, Kerry Ehrin, and Anthony Cipriano. It is produced by Universal Television for the cable network A&E. The series, a prequel to Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 film Psycho (based on Robert Bloch's novel of the same name), depicts the lives of Norman Bates and his mother Norma prior to the events portrayed in the film, albeit in a different fictional town (White Pine Bay, Oregon, as opposed to the film's Fairvale, California) and in a modern setting.